Dolphin Up

Game Info

The Wii U has been a gateway for numerous indie developers to showoff their passion in gaming and get their own creations to the public.  Rawkins Games have brought their title Dolphin Up to Nintendo’s home console that mixes Echo The Dolphin style gameplay with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater trick system.  There is no story to this title and you have no goals aside from scoring as high as possible to climb the online leaderboards.

Players can choose from three different porpoises and three alternate stages to play on in Dolphin Up.  You will be trying to jump out of the water while flipping and spinning, trying to make that perfect entry back into the water.  The more you jump and land a perfect reentry into the water, the more speed your porpoise will gain and can then jump to higher altitudes out of the water.  When I say higher altitudes I literally mean higher altitudes, some of them being all the way in space.  You are given a two minute timer to score attack as much as possible within that time frame and it will be posted immediately to the online leaderboards once the timer runs out.  There is a free swim mode that will allow you to practice your tricks and skills without being timed to improve your performance.  If you make it to the edge of space when jumping, you can slide along shooting stars to improve your score, but if you don’t make a nice entry back in the water you will lose that hard earned combo score.

The controls are quite simple with you utilizing the analog or d-pad to aim your finned little friend in the direction you want him to move and use “B” to swim faster.  Once you jump up out of the water you can use the ZL or ZR buttons to flip either left or right and use “Y” to spin around.  When you get good you can use “Y” at the right time to tail slide along the water surface or icebergs above the water.

Dolphin Up was originally a mobile game and still has that visual look with nothing making the Wii U version stand out differently from its mobile counterpart.  The fireworks and colorful explosions are nice once you break the Earth’s atmosphere and travel upward through space.  The sound is very basic, although each of the three porpoise choices will have a little bit of different sounds when tail sliding.  There is no music to keep you going for the two-minute score attack and leaves you with pure ambient sounds and effects of horns and sirens when flying through space.  In the options you can opt to turn off the sound if you desire since the sounds won’t add much to the game.

The Recommendation

Dolphin Up is definitely a game that could have extreme potential in a possible later improved sequel.  I enjoyed my time with the game, but wished there was more to it rather than a simple two-minute score attack and free swim modes.  The trick system is a lot of fun and could use some new moves to spice up the overall experience.  Online leaderboards were a great addition to this game and had me trying to get up there globally to show my skills.  Online play would’ve been ideal for this game in the same sense of Tony Hawk where you both fight the timer to score the highest.  I would love to see another Dolphin Up game with more content and online play, but for $3.99 it isn’t that bad for a two-minute time killer.